Frequently Asked Questions

Americas Quizzing Order of Merit - Inaugural Season

The Order of Merit ranks will ordinarily be based on players’ performances over a whole season. However, as we’ve never had a season before, for the opening edition of the Circuit, we’ve had to look elsewhere for data, and have based these initial rankings on four events held in the last 15 months, the latest of which was the one staged on 10 February 2018 with the express purpose of helping us assign these initial ranks. The other events are the Individual competition at the inaugural Quiz Olympiad in Athens (November 2016), the World Quizzing Championships (June 2017), in which approaching 300 people from North America played, and the Grand Prix quiz staged at TCONA7 (August 2017).

We then looked to establish a hierarchy of results to assign the ranks Grand Master, Master, Candidate Master, and Sage. Everyone beneath that hierarchy will begin with the rank of Novice. We should stress also that in this context the terms “Grand Master” and “Master” etc. are entirely gender neutral. We hope no one is offended by the use of what may be seen as ‘male’ terminology.

So, based on the four events mentioned, how did we assign the ranks?

We looked for players with one or more “top 10 finish”, and those with finishes in the top 20. For the purposes of the Olympiad and WQC, a qualifying “top 10 finish” means a player with one of the best 10 scores among players from the Americas AND placed 50th or better in the competition as a whole (i.e. encompassing all nationalities). Similarly, to register a qualifying “top 20 finish”, the player had to place 100th or better overall. By way of an illustration, while all top 10 Americas players registered scores among the 50 best global WQC results, only six did so at the Olympiad.

Anyone with two or more qualifying top 10 finish among the four events in question is named a Grand Master.

Anyone with at least one top 10 finish is named a Master.

Anyone with two or more top 20 finishes is also named a Master.

Anyone with one top 20 finish is named a Candidate Master.

Anyone who has played in at least two of the four qualifying events is named a Sage.

Everyone else is named a Novice.

So who are the Inductees into the Order of Merit?

Grand Masters

Andrew Ullsperger

Mark Ryder

Patrick Friel

Raj Dhuwalia

Shane Whitlock

Steven Perry

Tim Polley

Victoria Groce

Yogesh Raut

Masters

Brad Rutter

Brandon Saunders

Chris Goheen

Chris Miller

Ed Toutant

Guy Jordan

Henry Herron

Jakob Myers

Jerome Vered

Jonathan Hess

Joshua Kreitzer

Julie Ghanbari

Kaya Chua

Ken Jennings

Leslie Chun

Lorin Burte

Tanay Kothari

Candidate Masters

Adam Villani

Brian Fodera

Chris Grubb

Drew Scheeler

Eric Smith

Greg Peterson

Jeff Richmond

Joon Pahk

Paul Paquet*

Richard Grimes

Sam Meyer

Steve Bahnaman

Steve Chernicoff

Tom Kelso

Vito Cortese

Sages

Andrew Fowler

Bill Penrose

Chris Parsons

Cliff Galiher

Dave Mattingly

David Bailey

David Dixon

David Fisher

Deb Stowell

Doug Robeson

Dustin Hinz

Eugene Hung

Gary Gambino

Gene Bawdon

Hans Von Walter

Jean Cui

Jeff Frank

Jennifer Morrow

Jeremy Horwitz

Jim Mudrak

John Gillmore

Jonathan Graham

Kaberi Chakrabarty

Kathryn Verwillow

Ken Brennan

Kristina Larkins

Laura Paquet

Leslie Shannon

Lynda Burns

Matt Albert

Megan McLeod

Michael Mudrak

Pam Mueller

Patrick Wilson

Paul Bailey

Ricky Young

Sid Shanker

Sunny Chu

Susannah Brooks

Warren Usui

*Note, employing our Circuit Directors’ discretion, we name Paul Paquet a Candidate Master. This is in recognition of the fact he’s made strong showings in past quiz events, just not the four under consideration here – two of them because he wrote or co-wrote the quizzes, another due to his commitments at TCONA, and finally, having to cancel his attendance at the Olympiad.

We hope you can join us in congratulating our Order of Merit inductees, especially our first Grand Masters. If someone spots an oversight on our part (i.e. you believe you have not received due recognition) then please get in touch. We still have time to correct any egregious omissions before our inaugural Grand Prix on March 10th, 2018.

How Can I Take Part In The Americas Quizzing Circuit Events?

There are four ways that you can join in with our quizzes:

At a proctored site in The Americas (Canada, USA, Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean). You will earn rankings points at these events. To sign up, just register on Quizzing.com and then look for venues near to you in the schedule. It is not possible to earn rankings points for these events if you are not playing in a home territory where the circuit operates, you can still play though with your score appearing on the unofficial leader board. (See next bullet point)

At proctored sites in other countries. Any participating venues have from the day after the official sites have played until the following Sunday to play and get their scores in. These scores are combined with the home territory scores to create an unofficial leader board. To sign up, just register on Quizzing.com and then look for any available local venues in the schedule.

As a home player. You can play along from the comfort of your own home and will receive the questions the day after the quiz has been played at the official venues. Your score will currently only be visible to you, on both the official and unofficial leader boards, as appropriate. We have future plans for the home player scores too. To register, please complete the short form here. The only thing we ask is that you don’t discuss the questions publicly until everyone around the world has finished playing.

Buying past papers. Question sets will be made available after everyone listed above has finished playing. You will be able to download and play them via our shop – quizzingstore.com

Who Can Play?

Anyone can. These are open events with no qualification process. Everyone is welcome!

How Do I Register To Play?

Just head to quest.quizzing.com, click ‘Register’ and complete the form. Please note that your password must contain a minimum of eight characters that include at least one upper-case letter, one number and one non-alphanumeric character such as a question mark.

Note also that event bookings close 72 hours before the quiz starts at your venue.

A video showing you how to register an account can be found by clicking the button below.

How Much Is The Entry Fee?

The standard fee for playing in a circuit quiz is $17 (US) plus any local fee incurred by the proctor to cover the cost of the venue. Full-time students pay a fee of $8.50 plus any local fee.

Our February 2018 pre-launch contest is available at a discounted price (i.e. half price) for everyone and, as with all future events on the circuit, the Americas quiz comes bundled with the Hot100 – a monthly 100 question internationally-themed quiz – at no extra cost.

A payments system is being built for the site, but in the meantime the fees are payable at your venue.

Where Are The Quizzes Run?

Our quizzes take place all over the world and you can play along at home too!

How Can I Play From Home?

Home players are sent the questions the day after the rankings events are played. The cost is the same as for the proctored events. To apply to be a home player, please register here.

What Are The Rules?

UK and Americas Quizzing Circuit Individual Quiz Rules

All individual quizzing circuit quizzes, known as ‘Grands Prix’ follow the same format:

The quizzes are written

The quiz has 240 questions split into six genres of 30 questions plus 10 tie-breakers

Questions 28 to 30 in each genre are linked to images – these appear on the last sheet of the bundle

90 minutes to answer as many questions as possible

If asked for a person’s name, unless told otherwise, a surname is all that is required. Don’t risk writing down the wrong forename. A wrong given name results will lose you the point

Where the subject of the question is female, their surname at birth (if different) will always be accepted – unless the question specifies otherwise

Unless stated otherwise, phonetically correct answers will be accepted – this is a test of your knowledge NOT spelling

There is no added penalty for a wrong answer

Players must not use mobile phones or any other resource during the quiz, nor can they confer with other players. This is a quiz for individual players

Papers are swapped between players for marking and the answers are read by the proctor. (Please make sure your name is written clearly on the top sheet of your papers)

At the end of marking, your checker should copy your scores, in duplicate, into the two tables on the top sheet of the bundle. If you agree with their marking, tear-off the bottom portion and hand it to the proctor. Once this has been done, no further discussions will be entered into about your score.

After marking you will get your paper back and you have 5 minutes to check you agree with the scoring. Disputed answer must be referred to the proctor in this time. Please indicate which answer(s) you are querying, using the space provided on the reverse of the tear-off. Specify which question(s) you are querying (genre & number) and the answer you gave, and make the proctor aware you’ve raised a query. The proctor is the official adjudicator for your site – their decision is final – but they do have the facility to query matters with the central adjudicator who considers all referrals. Listen for the outcome of any such referral, including queries not raised at your venue.

If you finish before 90 minutes expires, you may leave your seat, leaving your bundle on the table. Please respect the need of players still quizzing to be free of distractions. You are also permitted during the quiz to visit the toilet, or take a smoke break, but please leave your bundle on the table.

In the event of any unprecedented occurrence or unforeseen circumstance arising during the quiz, the proctor may give a ruling on the matter and their decision shall be final. Similarly, the proctor (or central adjudicator) can mark-down your score discovered to have been inflated, accidentally or otherwise.

Your commencing to answer questions in a Grand Prix paper indicates your complete and unequivocal acceptance of these rules.

Scoring

Players aggregate their five best genres to find their overall score.

In the first instance ties are separated by reference to a player’s dropped score (their sixth, weakest genre). If players are still tied, the one with the highest scoring paper in any genre wins. If still tied, the player with the next highest scoring genre (and so on) will prevail.

Genres

Each genre forms a separate contest. Tied genre scores are separated by reference to the tiebreakers, which are worth just 0.1 point each. If players are tied on both main score and tiebreakers, they remain tied.

What About Security?

We employ numerous measures to prevent cheating in order to protect the rankings system and events that we have spent many years establishing and building up.

No cash prizes, so there is no material gain from cheating.

We monitor scores.

All venues must have at least four participants. This is because the more people there are in attendance, the harder it is to cheat, and the harder also to keep cheating a secret afterwards.

If you suspect foul play, you can go and quiz at the suspected venue to monitor it for yourself. Indeed, we welcome players visiting other sites.

Venues outside of the UK can only play UK circuit quizzes after those in the UK have concluded. Venues outside of the Americas can only play the Americas circuit quizzes after those in the Americas have concluded.

Only UK sites will be able to have UK Rankings Points. Only the Americas sites will be able to have the Americas Rankings Points. This is because it is simply too difficult to police players abroad. Believe us, we have a lot of experience in this area. Players from abroad will be able to see how they did against everyone. Two scoreboards will be published for each regional circuit – a UK/Americas one with rankings points and a global one (including UK/Americas players) without rankings points.

Quiz Guardians. There must always be a Quiz Guardian at a site before rankings points will be awarded. (A Quiz Guardian is someone known and respected on the existing quiz circuit. Someone who is well-known and who we have plenty of empirical data on. They are appointed to help protect the integrity of the events and our ranking points system, and to ensure our quiz is not brought into disrepute. They can also assist the host if necessary. A site MUST have at least one Quiz Guardian in attendance in order for the site’s event to attract rankings points. We are in the happy position of having a large number of quizzers who fit the bill, so we don’t think it will be a problem for a venue. A Quiz Guardian can be the event proctor. All quizzers attaining the level of Master or above (or players we deem appropriate) will be Quiz Guardians. In addition, persons known to and trusted by the IQA and BQA directors – either through event attendance, or by virtue of being respected officials of well-regarded quiz leagues – may be appointed.)

If you have reason to believe someone is cheating, please get in touch detailing your concerns – cheats@quizzing.com

Where Are The Results?

Our QUEST database holds results. Visit QUEST to see the results, schedules and register to take part.

What Should I Do If Some Of My Scores Are Incorrect Or Missing?

If the missing/incorrect score is from the current season, please contact your proctor who can add the score in or correct it.

If the missing/incorrect score(s) are from a previous season, you’ll need to get in touch with us. Because we’ve been gathering scores and data for many years, sometimes people’s names get spelt differently or an extra account is created by accident which means some of your scores may not be attached to your user account. It’s easy for us to fix though. Just email us quest@quizzing.com

What Is The American Order Of Merit?

The American Order of Merit is reviewed annually at the start of a season. All qualifying events attended in a circuit count towards your year-end total for that circuit (many players will hold ranks both in their local circuit and the International Order of Merit at the same time).

In order to attain the highest rank – ‘Grand Master’ (GM) on the Americas circuit – the bar is set at 50% of the seasonal maximum aggregate of available ranking points.

To achieve ‘Master’ status you will need to garner 30% of the seasonal maximum available (i.e. a little over half of what is needed for GM status).

To become a ‘Candidate Master’, you will need at least 15% of the available maximum points in a season.

‘Sage’ rank is achieved by attending a minimum of four ranking events or scoring 5% of the total rankings points available. Once attained, ‘Sage’ rank cannot be lost. You can be promoted, but you cannot be demoted to ‘Novice’.

New attendees, and anyone not achieving the minimum requirement for ‘Sage’ status, are accorded ‘Novice’ status.

At the end of each season the directors of the circuit (i.e. the owners of quizzingamericas.com) have discretion to grant dispensations in exceptional, deserving cases.

What Are The Rolling Two-Year Rankings?

While the Order of Merit is re-set annually, there is another tally of points that rolls over two years. This produces a ranked table of all players on the circuit, with players ordered by reference to their total tally of rankings points (i.e. regardless of Order of Merit rank).

This will be set up once we have some results.

Can I Take Part In International Quizzing Rankings Events Too?

YES!

Hot 100. This quiz is bundled free of charge at UK and Americas circuit events. It is also bundled free of charge at venues advertised via quizzing.com that are playing along with the UK or the Americas circuits. You can also play as a home player. To register as a home player, please complete the short form here. Only scores from official venues will count in the International Quizzing Rankings.

World Quizzing Championships. We put calls out for venues in April and typically have around 150 locations across the world. Keep watching the com website for details on venues and information on how to register. Only scores from official venues will count in the International Quizzing Rankings.

The European and The Americas Quizzing Championships. Both the European and the Americas Quizzing Championships see quizzers congregating at a single venue. Papers will be made available after these events to play along for fun, but only scores awarded at the events will attract International Quizzing Rankings Points.

Open Quizzes. These are individual ‘Grands Prix’ quizzes that feature as events on the UK circuit and on the Americas circuit. These quizzes attract rankings points as usual on the owning circuit AND also earn rankings points on the parallel International Circuit (from March 2018 onwards). Only one quiz per year in each circuit will be designated an ‘Open Quiz’. The questions featured in this will still be written with the circuit’s regular players in mind, but they will be a little more accessible for ‘foreign players’ than usual. For these quizzes you will be able to participate at any proctored site local to you.

Buying past papers. Question sets will be made available after everyone listed above has finished playing. You will be able to download and play them via our shop – quizzingstore.com

What Are Proctors And How Do I Become One?

Proctors are people who host and run quizzes locally for you to attend.

We welcome applicants who would like to host an event. Applicants should be individuals who are already playing in our events, applying either in their own right or on behalf of an established, reputable, non-profit making quiz league. In order to run one of our events, here are some things you should consider:

Is there good WiFi at your venue? This is essential to submit scores and resolve any queries as we aim to have results up very quickly.

Do you have a good working laptop? You will need this in order to access our results entry system. You are probably better using a laptop than a tablet as it will be easier to enter the scores if you have a bigger screen and a proper keyboard.

Is the venue quiet and does it have plenty of seating for the number of participants you hope will come along? It is fine for the venue to be a residential address.

Is the venue accessible? People will be travelling by car and by public transport, so it’s good to have parking on site and a train station / bus stop nearby. We also have a number of players who have disabilities, so good disabled access is very helpful.

Do you have someone who is not participating who can receive and print out the questions and provide them to you in a sealed envelope to be opened in front of the room? This will enable you to take part in the quiz. In some territories (e.g. the UK) it may be possible to mail questions in bulk to proctors, but this is not a service open to all venues.

Will you be able to attract at least four players (including the proctor if he/she is playing)?

Can a ‘Quiz Guardian’ attend?

Is there already an event in your neighbourhood?

Is there an additional cost for using the venue that you will need to add to the price of entry?

We are happy for you to run additional quizzes as part of your event as long as they do not prevent you getting your scores in promptly and if they are either offered free of charge, or the income is used to raise money to support your quiz league, but we would ask that people be allowed to just do the Grand Prix and Hot 100 if they so choose.

What are the duties of the host?

To enter the details of your venue into our QUEST database at least two weeks before the event so these details appear on Quizzing.com. It is fine for you to promote you event elsewhere too.

To follow existing rules. It is envisaged that all hosts will be familiar with the rules of our existing events and will run their events in accordance with these established rules and timings. These will be sent to all hosts.

To input the results into our system by the deadline.

To ensure there is no cheating.

To collect players’ entry fees and pass these on to Quizzing after deducting any share you are due.

What’s in it for the host?

The event host gets to play for free assuming at least four other paying players are taking part. You can pass the free place on to an individual (perhaps as a prize or a gift) or to the group, reducing the price for all players, or you can sell your free place. It’s entirely up to you.

In addition to this, for every paying player over 10 that you have, the host will receive £1 (or $1.50) for each of these paying players. We hope this will either make a bit of money for an individual, or raise money for a quiz league or charity. Again, this is up to you.

The host will also be able to keep £1 (or $1.50) of every player’s entry fee to cover printing costs if we have not supplied paper copies of the questions to you.

Can I Be A Question Setter?

We welcome applicants to set quizzes for us. Having a variety of writers keeps everything fresh and helps reduce and bias. Setters need to have experience in writing questions to a high standard and will need to undertake to have the set they are writing ready and with us 10 weeks before it is due to be used in order to give us time to have the set properly verified and edited. We send out full instructions and templates.

It is fine to get a team together to share the work, as long as a full set of questions is sent to us by the deadline, and as long as confidentiality and discretion is upheld.

We pay for the questions as soon as they are used upon presentation of an invoice.

For further details, please email setting@quizzing.com

Can I Buy Past Quizzes?

Yes!

Our Quizzing Store has LOADS of past papers you can buy and answers you can download.